Solitude
by october violet
Summary: revised and reposted Jak's POV All I wanted was a little solitude, an escape from the torment of memory.


Disclaimer: I don't own it (I think we're all a bit tired of this, right?).

A/N: This is a repost, I was formerly stonespiderfaerie, see profile if you care to.

_So the hero I knew did die in the desert... or was it long before that?_

Her words echoed in my head, making me lose my concentration. The Marauder vehicle was following close behind me, and as I steered sharply to the left to avoid colliding headfirst into a rock, it was not so lucky. Debris from the ruined shell of the vehicle flew in my direction and hit the wheel of the dune buggy, leaving a large dent in the hubcap. _Kleiver's going to kill me_, I thought.

_So the hero I knew did die in the desert... or was it long before that?_

Anger surged through my veins like a hot fire. "Shut up!" I snapped, not realizing I had said it aloud until Daxter looked at me strangely. "Sorry," I muttered. But he wasn't listening anymore.

"Whoa... that puppy could sure kick some ass!" he exclaimed, pointing ahead of us.

I turned my attention forward. It was a huge Marauder vehicle, with machine guns mounted onto the top of it. "Yeah Dax," I said. "I'm gonna try to outrun it, so shut up so I can concentrate. If you don't, well, yeah, the thing's gonna kick ass... ours."

He gulped and concentrated on smoothing his fur and brushing the desert sand out of it. "Okay, whatever ya say," he muttered.

Swiftly I turned the vehicle around and shot at the dune buggy behind me until it blew up in front of it. I gunned the craft down the steep slope in the general direction of Spargus and bounced through the water of the shallow river. A vehicle in front of us tried to block our escape route as it slid in the water and shot a huge wave of water and laser-fire at us. I blinked rapidly to get the water out of my eyes. Our vehicle was damaged. I could hear Daxter next to my ear mourning the death of his "carefully done, chick-magnet fur-do."

"Dax, be quiet before I throw you off and leave you to the Marauders!" I yelled. He didn't seem to hear me, so I tried to ignore him as we left the river and come at last into view of the walls of the city.

As we slid into the dune buggy garage, I could hear the Marauder vehicles roaring away outside, their drivers yelling in anger. I stalked out into the city streets. I could hear Daxter behind me, calling and asking where I was going. I ignored him; would it kill him to spend a couple of hours on his own?

I needed a place to think. No one understood this, but I was constantly asked to do things, always having to prove myself to someone new. Why couldn't they just let me be alone? I needed the space, I needed solitude or I would go nuts. Of course, most all of them thought I was crazy anyway...

Perfect - the turret. I went to climb the ladder. A burly man, some sort of guard, blocked my way. "You can't go up there," he insisted. I pushed him aside leaving him sprawled on the ground. I felt no trace of guilt as I ascended the ladder to the high rock tower.

The sea lapped at the rocks, always wearing them down, more and more each day. I was like a rock, and everyone else was the sea. Someday they'd break me, and their hero would fall at last. They could die and burn in Hades for all I cared. Since when had anyone even been the least bit grateful for anything I did? The people in Sandover Village, and my old world -- they were only concerned for their own silly lives; they'd do anything, pay any price, to save their own skins. And the people of Haven were worse -- I saved their sorry asses, rescued their precious city, escorted that kid -- myself, that is -- all over the fucking place to keep him safe, and someday he'd be me, and it'd all happen again, and he'd be thrown out of the city himself, and the people will keep being cruel, cold, wrapped in themselves... It all made my head turn.

_So the hero I knew did die in the desert... or was it long before that?_

"Yes, Ashelin... the hero died." With this statement, I stared into the sea, stared to the horizon that I was always trying to reach. "The hero died long before you met him." The hero was not I; not after Praxis was done putting Eco into me. The Darkness killed the hero.

She thought she knew me; they all thought they knew me. Ashelin thought she knew me when we talked that day I left Daxter to drive in the Class Two race.

"_The weight of destiny should not be carried by one man alone," she said, pain apparent in her eyes as we sat on a wall in Dead Town. "It should be shared equally with everyone. It will break one person, but together... we could bear it."_

"_It wouldn't work," I answered. "Not everyone is willing to share a load of any kind, especially one that determines the fate of the world. They'd rather sit on their asses and watch the heroes die trying to save everything."_

_She nodded. "Boy, is that sure true. Especially in this city. They prefer to talk about what needs to be done, and never actually do anything about it. The Council is especially good at that; they meet for days at a time and never get anything accomplished."_

_I sighed. "It'll never change."_

"_Yes it will, Jak. You'll change it," she said confidently._

_I laughed dryly. "Nothing I do changes anything. It just sheds more innocent blood and destroys the city further. I don't care about the stupid city, but on the other hand I sure as hell don't want to destroy it. The Baron's the only one I'm after."_

_Ashelin was silent for a minute, and then she said, "He wasn't always like that, Jak. He really wasn't. My mother told me, before she died, that when he married her he was different. But he went to war, and it changed him. He was never the same."_

"_No," I said. "People like him are born to be nothing but piles of yakow shit."_

"_That isn't true!" she cried with more of a passion than I had heard before from her. "He was different. He _was_."_

_I didn't want to anger anyone else so I disagreed silently this time. Silence settled over us. Far off in the distance, cries and gunshots rose from the city. "No, don't!" someone yelled. "Not her... no!" There were more gunshots, and the glow of laser fire lit up the night sky._

"_That's probably the Commander and his racing team. Celebrating... or rampaging. Do you think they won?" Ashelin's voice startled me._

"_Dax beat them," I said confidently. "He's quick enough to operate controls like the one on the racer. I know he did well."_

"_Jak... why do you put up with him? There's so much you could do by yourself, and you could certainly make a better impression on people you need to help you if you didn't have him making smart-ass comments," Ashelin said._

_I laughed. "Y'know how many times I've thought about taking him out to the Pumping Station and leaving him there? More times than I can count. But then I think, he rescued me from the prison, and he does have his helpful moments, and I've been friends with him since we were really little... longer than I can remember. And despite being obnoxious, he can usually cheer me up." I had never told anyone this before. I thought I'd tell Keira someday, but after the fight this afternoon, when she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with me, well..._

"_We ought to go back to the city and find Daxter, or else he'll escape to the Naughty Ottsel and drink everything they've got before remembering that he doesn't have any money," she said, getting up._

_I grabbed her hand. "Just stay a minute."_

_She shrugged. "All right. For a minute."_

_I had wanted her to stay; this was the one time I didn't want to be alone. But now I couldn't think of anything to say. I noticed that she sat closer to me this time, her thigh touching mine._

"_Jak," she said quietly. "Was it my father that hurt you?"_

_I didn't want to cause her more pain, but I had to nod. "He gave the orders. Erol carried them out."_

"_Jak... I'm so sorry. I really am."_

"_Sorry doesn't help. It wasn't your fault anyway," I said harshly. "You didn't know."_

"_But I did know. At least, I knew what he was doing. I saw it once, and I refused to go back ever again. It wasn't that I cared about the people... it was that he lied to me about it, and said he was experimenting on imprisoned Metal Heads." She bowed her head. "But now that I know you, I feel guilty for not doing something about it."_

"_Why? What makes me so different from anyone else being tortured to the brink of death? No one should have to endure that unless they deserve it. No one in the prison deserved what was happening to them -- we were people, Ashelin, people, being treated worse than yakows!"_

_Her expression changed. "I know," she said, so softly I could barely hear her. "Don't you see? That's what I learned from you. A lot of people have learned from you."_

"_Yeah?" I snorted. "Well, they have a funny way of showing it."_

"_They just don't know how." She looked up at me, her eyes shining. "I don't know how either."_

_Something came over me then; something I didn't know was there. "Like this." I leaned close to her and kissed her. I could feel her smiling mouth against mine as we deepened the kiss. I had wanted to do this for a long time, ever since I met her, but I had the most uncomfortable feeling I was holding the wrong girl._

_Finally she pulled away. "Jak... I like you, but this isn't right. Torn and I, we... we..."_

"_I'm sorry. I understand." My face burned in the darkness, and even though she couldn't see me I turned away. I wasn't sorry; I didn't understand. She acted like she liked me, she admitted she liked me, and she kissed me, and _then _she tells me about her and Torn. Why couldn't she have done that first?_

"You didn't know me," I yelled out to the water. "You didn't."

_Didn't, didn't_, the emotionless waves echoed back to me.

_Didn't._


End file.
